You are here

قراءة كتاب Polly the Pagan Her Lost Love Letters

تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"

‏اللغة: English
Polly the Pagan
Her Lost Love Letters

Polly the Pagan Her Lost Love Letters

تقييمك:
0
No votes yet
المؤلف:
دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 4

so glad we’re going to stay here in Rome for a while! Aunt has taken the upper floor of an old palace, and we’re all nicely settled for the spring. Up on the roof is our little terrace garden, so tiny but so perfect, with its stone paths and its borders of pussy-faced pansies and violets. In the corners are huge earthen jars bubbling over with pink roses, and the trellis to one side is covered with big-leaved vines where Cæsar, the mockingbird, hangs in his yellow wicker cage in the shade and makes joyful noises.

The sky is always so blue and the sun so warm and golden up there, and yet, it makes you cool just to let your eyes wander off to the snow-capped mountains in the distance. The dome of St. Peter’s is not far off, and the Vatican—I wonder what plans the clever old Pope is devising over there.

Sometimes I stand by the stone balustrade and gaze down into the narrow dark street far below, where there are small black creatures scurrying and hurrying about, and the bad odors of the city come up, and I hear faintly the shrill cries of the vendors. It is wonderful way up there, in the sunshine, and still lovelier at night when the great moon is sailing in the sky. I hope everybody down in the street has a terrace to go to and be happy on, sometime in their lives.

There’s a little room off the roof garden where we go when the chill of late afternoon creeps over Rome and drives us indoors. After the sun has set behind the clouds, we start an open fire and make tea by candle-light. It’s an artistic little nook, with old carved furniture and brocades and sketches by well-known painters. A wonderful place for beaux!

Just as I finished writing the last entry in my journal, Louisa, our pretty Italian maid, with a great air of secrecy, brought me a sealed letter that a foreign gentleman, so she said, gave her. My Roman adventures have begun!


PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY

My leetle Pagan,

May I come up? I see you on the terrace in the sunshine and in the moonlight with arms outstretched to the heavens, worshiping the elements. But you who worship nature, you give to the world yourself the perfume of the rose, the sunshine playing among the leaves, the song of the wild bird of the woods. I can imagine you dancing in the forest to the strange notes of Pan. Nature is just, but often ruthless. I pray civilization may not bring you ruin.

Boris.


JOURNAL CONTINUED

I haven’t told a soul about yesterday’s letter, nor have I yet put down my next thrilling adventure, but Aunt manages to keep a fairly watchful eye on Checkers and me. Being twins, we are much alike and always under suspicion of what Uncle John used to call “collusion.” So far we’ve behaved very well, but when we do anything we should not, she says, “There’s your uncle cropping out,” or “You’re as wild as hawks; where do you two get these ways?” and then I answer her with this song:

“I’m a little prairie flower
Growing wilder every hour;
I don’t care what you say to me,
For I’m as wild as I can be.”

Checkers has a little cart and horse such as the Roman swells drive; he hunts in the Campagna, and everybody simply loves his American slang. When people remark how much we are alike, he retorts, “Sure! We’re twins, and she’s as close to me as my glove.”

But my adventure—well!. Yesterday I was out shopping alone when I noticed a man was following me at a distance. I hurried home, not daring to turn around, but he followed me all the way, and then proceeded to walk up and down outside my window in Italian fashion. I could only see the top of his silk hat, but I thought just for fun I would throw him a rose. Aunt caught me at it and she certainly was scandalized; hereafter I am never to go out alone.

Louisa, looking rather demure, came in this afternoon and announced the American Secretary. And who do you think came with him? The Russian Prince of the steamer. And that isn’t all, for it was he who followed me home! Now that he has been properly introduced, Aunt has forgiven him everything, and is all smiles. He talked to her most of the time, not to me, and she says he is very agreeable. I adore his broken English, but how is he going to smuggle letters to me, unless maybe Louisa will continue to help?

Auntie is perking up and taking notice. She is certainly getting frisky. Our good old Cart Horse, as she calls herself because she thinks she does all the work, has come out of mourning and invested in a lot of new, artistic clothes,—lovely colors, but floppy—that go rather well with her reddish hair. She’s making a specialty of artists, and of one artist in particular, a temperamental soul, dark and handsome with wild hair called Don Peppi, who is painting her portrait.

In the midst of a party last evening I was introduced to Captain Carlo somebody—I’ve forgotten the rest of his name—who at once began a desperate flirtation with me. Desperate indeed, for he’s a dashing young Italian officer who wears his beautiful uniform most smartly, and speaks good English and dances simply divinely. Checkers says he hunts on the Campagna, and being a reckless rider, cuts quite a figure there. I think he may be a close second to the Prince. When we were leaving, he got our things for us, and he, and the American Secretary, the Turkish Ambassador, “Pan,” they call him, and a Spanish diplomat, Marquis Gonzaga, managed between them to put us properly in our carriage. This is LIFE!


PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY

Rome,

February.

Cherished little Hummingbird,

I wish to know you better—you who throw me the red rose the color of your lips when I so wickedly follow you home. Your skin it resemble the pure white snow upon the steppes of Siberia, your hair the golden doubloons found in the depth of the Spanish Main, and your blue eyes the fairy sea on which we met. But when I draw near to catch you on that boat Cleopatra (has her spirit entered your soul to haunt me?) I find you vanish through the fingers like a card in the hands of a magician.

I inquire of you in Rome—no one know about hummingbirds—I am in despair. Then the saints are kind. I see you on your terrace. I wait at your door. I send you a letter by your maid. You not reply and you not look at me when you pass by me in the street. I follow. But you vanish again into the door of that dark palazzo. I ask the concierge your name—he will not tell. Outside I wait, and the saints they are still kind. Down from Heaven falls the rose!

Next day I see the Secretaire Americain, my old friend as I remember at once. We meet on the street outside the palazzo—he say he goes in there to make call on lovely American young lady. I take him by the arm, I beg, I implore him to introduce me,—ah, I am so desperate! Perhaps he have pity on one who suffer so much. He take me in and—I have to talk to your Aunt. He speak all the time to you, and I have to see you together and talk only to the Aunt. Are you willing I should come again, Cleopatra girl? Post Scriptum. I come again anyway!


JOURNAL CONTINUED

Rome,

February.

The

Pages